


and i will try to harmonise

by thebitterbeast



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, POV Mary Bennet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22846015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebitterbeast/pseuds/thebitterbeast
Summary: Mary Bennet, a study in three parts.or;Three years in Mary Bennet's life.
Relationships: Mary Bennet/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 85





	and i will try to harmonise

**Author's Note:**

> I adore Mary Bennet a lot, because there's a lot of scope to write her character. As much as I do love Lizzy, she has a very prejudiced POV towards her family. We see her learning to look past prejudices for Darcy, but what if she's got blinders on with her family too? So this is what could have been.

When Mary was eight, she fell ill.

She was not the only member of her family to come down with the sickness. No, her mother, usually strong, was relegated to her bed as was little Lydia, whose wails and tantrums shook the household.

And Henry.

Henry Bennet, her twin, who refused to sleep in his own bed, and whose fever worsened into shakes when they were separated. Henry Bennet, who soothed her sobs and tears when the aches got too much and promised her everything would be okay.

Henry Bennet, who went to sleep at night next to her and did not wake up in the morning.

Mary's own health took a turn for the worse, and when she awoke many days later, finally clear of mind and broken in spirit, she did not recognise her own mother. This loud and frightened woman was not the Fanny Bennet Mary knew, but life had to move on.

Everything was different after Henry - after. Her father grew cold and mocking. Her mother shrill and fretful. Her sisters - well, she was left in the middle, alone.

Always alone.

Music and books were her solace. A balm to her grief, and a way to turn a deaf ear to her sisters complaints at her stumbling fingers and stuttering words. She retreated further into her books, her pianoforte, herself.

* * *

When Mary was nineteen, three of her four sisters got married – beautiful Jane, witty Lizzy, and not so little but still a force of nature Lydia.

The house grew quieter, after. Her mother’s nerves, though not gone, calmed. Her father, as ever, sat in his study with his port and his books, and when he emerged, found something and someone to mock. Her lone remaining sister at home, Kitty, was lost without her partner in crime.

Slowly, they found a new normal, and Mary found herself gently coaxed out of the shell she had built around herself upon losing her brother and her other half. Slowly, Mary grew to understand and befriend Kitty. Slowly, Mary found the lingering shared grief within her mother and learned to share it. Slowly, and many years late, Mary and her mother and her younger sister healed.

Two months after the wedding, her mother grew ill, and Mary began to fret, like her mother was wont to do. Quieter, so as to not bother her easily irritated father, but fret Mary did. And Kitty stepped up shoulder to shoulder with Mary, and they cared for their mother, and to their surprise, found something wonderful.

At nine and ten, Mary welcomed a new brother to her family. Her mother welcomed her father’s heir, and the final death of her nerves. Her sister welcomed a new responsibility and a maturity she had always been told she never would gain.

Her father welcomed his heir with some surprise and no less affection than he gave his daughters still at home. There was no more affection than he gave them too, but it did not matter.

Master Tom Bennet had three women at home who adored him very much, who were learning how to be their own people again after many years of being told who they were and forcing themselves to live those parts. Tom Bennet would never be anybody but who he wanted to be, who he was. All three women made him that promise, and made each other the same.

* * *

When Mary was seven and twenty, she was persuaded to give up her spinster’s cap.

The Viscount Weston, Andrew Fitzwilliam, had been trying to convince Mary to be his bride since the first time they had met. Mary had been denying him for just as long, to her older sisters’ surprise. Adding to their surprise was their mother’s amused acceptance of the first refusal, and then a look in her eyes that they did not recognize, but Mary knew. Kitty knew. Tom knew.

And, to the surprise of those four Bennets, the Viscount recognized.

Mary had not understood the Viscount’s fascination with her. And it had to have been fascination, because she was neither beautiful nor witty nor vivacious. She was simple and staid and plain Mary Bennet. He was a Viscount, the son of an Earl, rich and handsome and intelligent. What could he see in her but a project of some sort?

She was wrong, of course. He wanted to hear what she had to say, not to tease or mock, but for learning more about her. He liked to listen to her at a pianoforte, seeming to just not care that she was no great talent despite her love for the music. He enjoyed her company, contemplating life and God and family with her. He even took time to speak to her mother and her sister, deemed silly by her father, and her brother, deemed too young by the same, and genuinely liked them.

Oh, if only he had been a curate, she sometimes thought.

In one of their conversations, he had admitted to wishing he had been the younger son. The church, he had said, was his calling, but fate had something else in mind. He quoted the Great Book as she did, and she found that he did not mind debating scripture with her even.

She pointed out that in his position, he could help the people just as much if not more, and maybe that had been God’s design. The archness of her tone, and the mild reproach in it had not pushed him away. Instead, he looked at her as if she had caused a great revelation.

In seven years, he had proposed as many times.

His family did not fully understand, she knew. Hers – the ones that saw her, that saw him – had tried to get her to acknowledge that she loved him. He loved her.

Her mother, quietly, asked why she kept refusing him. (Her sisters and father would have been shocked to know their mother could be quiet.)

Mary, just as quietly, admitted to being frightened that he would stop seeing her as she was, and only see who he wished to see. (Her parents were the only example she had before her, and she saw what being looked through had done to her mother.)

But he stayed. He stayed her friend. He stood by her and her mother, and as a brother to her sister as she married, and taught her brother what their father did not.

And in the end, when he asked again, she said yes.

They bucked convention and tradition at the wedding. His family had come to accept that he would have no one else, and they liked Mary well enough even if they never understood her. They said nothing to Mary’s brother walking her down the aisle, her mother standing by her side with her younger sister. All they saw was the smile on the Viscount’s face, and the shy glow to Mary’s countenance.

It was her turn to be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any Mary recommendations especially, please let me know. Find me on [tumblr](ankahikoibaat.tumblr.com)!


End file.
